Ferdinand de Saussure

1. Ferdinand de Saussure

FERDINAND DE
SAUSSURE
ВЫПОЛНИЛА:
СИНИЦЫНА ДАРЬЯ, 14ФПЛ

2. Ferdinand de Saussure

FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE
• 26 November 1857 – 22 February
1913
• was a Swiss linguist and semiotician
• is widely considered one of the
founders of 20th-century linguistics
• Is one of two major of
semiotics/semiology

3. Language and speech

LANGUAGE AND SPEECH
• Language is a well-defined
homogeneous object in the
heterogeneous mass of speech
facts.
• Speech is many-sided and
heterogeneous.
• Language is a self-contained whole
and principle of classification.
• Speaking is willful and intentional.
• It is a product that is assimilated by
speakers.
• It belongs both to individual and
society.

4. Signifier and signified

SIGNIFIER AND SIGNIFIED
• Signifier is a sensory representation, while signified is a concept (meaning)
• Both components of the linguistic sign are inseparable.
• One way to understand this is to think of them as being like either side of
a piece of paper – one side simply cannot exist without the other.

5. Arbitrary nature of the sign

ARBITRARY NATURE OF THE SIGN
• It has been made for convenience of a speaking community
• There is no natural relationship between the signifier and signified, it is
conventional
• In that sense, when the signifier changes the signified does not
• In every country or speaking community, the sound of the words is different
(signifier) but the concept is still the same (signified)
• But there is an issue of onomatopoeia

6. Diachrony and synchrony

DIACHRONY AND SYNCHRONY
• The signifier is manipulated by the
speaking community that uses it
• Sign has the capacity to change, to
adapt to the social and cultural
environment
• Diachrony studies the terms of
the evolution of the language
through time
• The sign that does not change
through the time and does not
accept a linguistic change, is
studied by synchrony
• Synchrony analyzes a particular
moment of language in a
determined time with the aim of
following its evolution

7. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

SYNTAGMATIC AND PARADIGMATIC RELATIONS
• Syntagmatic relations are immediate
linear relations between units in a
segmental sequence. The combination of
two words or word-groups one of which
is modified by the other forms a unit
which is reffered to as a syntactic »
syntagma».
• Paradigmatic is associative and clusters
signs together in the mind, producing
sets: sat, mat, cat, bat, for example, or
thought, think, thinking, thinker
• Sets always involve a similarity, but
difference is a prerequisite, otherwise
none of the items would be
distinguishable from one another

8. Conclusion

CONCLUSION
• Saussure undoubtedly contributed to the thought that
language is a more complex system but can be easily accessed
and explained. He aspired to bring language to another level
where people could study it as a whole system but in different
variations.

9.

Thank you for your attention!